Abstract
Homogenates of fresh tissue from adult male and female rats were incubated with appropriate co-factors and androstenedione-3H for one hour at 37° C. Extraction and identification of reaction products demonstrated the aromatization of androstenedione to estrone by anterior hypothalamus but not by posterior hypothalamus, anterior pituitary gland or frontal cortex. This finding confirms and expands the previous preliminary report of aromatization by human fetal hypothalamus to include adults of both sexes in a second species, the rat. Further localization of this reaction is consistent with concepts derived from experimental evidence which indicate central aromatization of androgens to be involved in sexual differentiation of the brain, initiation and maintenance of sexual behavior, control of gonadotropin secretion and “peripheral conversion” of circulating androgens to estrogens. (Endocrinology 90: 295, 1972)
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